Emmanuel Levinas, answered from the texts and cited to the page.
The face of the other is not a phenomenon among phenomena. It does not present itself within the horizon of my consciousness as one perceived object among others. It comes from a height (hauteur) that exceeds the egological frame and that calls into question my spontaneous appropriation of the world. The face speaks the commandment "you shall not kill" before any system of moral rules and before any reciprocity.
The relation is non-reciprocal at the origin: I am responsible for the other in a way that is not symmetrical with the other's responsibility for me.1 To say that "we are equally responsible for each other" is, in the order of philosophical priority, to say something derivative — true at the level of universal moral discourse, but reached only by a reflective generalization that abstracts from the asymmetric situation in which I always already find myself.2
Equality is a derivative truth; the original asymmetry is the more fundamental. With the third party (le tiers) — every other other beyond the face-to-face — comparison, calculation, institutions, and law become necessary and legitimate.3 Justice is the demand that asymmetric responsibility extends to all others. But the institution of justice does not abolish the original asymmetry; it presupposes it. Without the face-to-face, justice has nothing to be just about.45
And you see (and this seems HAOT GNV 'goILsal 'anaosotiHa Sor important to me), the relationship with the other is not symmetrical, it is not at all as in Martin Buber. When I say Thou to an J, toa me, according to Buber I would always have that me before me as the one who says Thou to me. Consequently, there would be a reciprocal relationship.9 Philosophy, Justice, and Love, pp. 105–106
The saying is a way of greeting the Other, but to greet the Other is already to answer for him. It is difficult to be silent in someone's presence; this difficulty has its ultimate foundation in this signification proper to the saying, whatever is the said. It is necessary to speak of something, of the rain and fine weather, no matter what, but to speak, to respond to him and already to answer for him.Ethics and Infinity - Conversations with Philippe Nemo, pp. 96–98
The third party is also a neighbour, a face, an unattainable alterity. Here, with the third party, we have the proximity of a human plurality. Between the second and the third person, there can be relations in which one is guilty toward the other. I pass from the relation in which I am obligated to the other, responsible for the 101 other, to one in which I ask myself which is first.Alterity and Transcendence, pp. 124–125
But here, through the face of the Other, through his mortality, everything that in the Other does not regard me, "regards me." Responsibility for the Other—the face signifying to me "thou shalt not kill/" and consequently also "you are responsible for the life of this absolutely other other" —is responsibility for the unique one.Time and the Other, pp. 108–109
Its signification is an - order signified. To be precise, if the face signifies an order in my regard, this is not in the manner in which an ordinary sign signifies its signified; this order is the very signifyingness of the face. Ph.N.: You say at once ''it orders me'' and ** ordains me." Is this not a contradiction?Ethics and Infinity - Conversations with Philippe Nemo, pp. 106–108
The most common objection — surely responsibility is mutual; everyone is equally responsible for everyone — is intelligible and almost inevitable, but it misses the order of analysis. The objection is formulated from a panoramic vantage that places itself above the relation it describes, treating "you" and "me" as two instances of a generic interhuman relation. From that vantage equality is obvious and asymmetry incomprehensible. But the panoramic vantage is itself secondary: I do not first know human beings in general and then encounter the other as a case; I am addressed by this other in a situation I cannot escape, and the analysis must begin from there. The third party introduces the universalizing moment — and with it the legitimacy of comparison, the necessity of justice, the work of political institution — but the third is given through the face of the second, not above or before it. This is the structure Putnam engages in the Cambridge Companion, Waldenfels analyzes in his chapter on the face, and Caygill develops as the political stakes of the asymmetry. Peperzak's chapter on "Equality and Asymmetry" gives the careful reading: the universal Said reached through reflection is true, but the unicity of the singular face is more original, and the philosophical labor is to maintain both without collapsing either.